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McCain Backer Regrets Comments on Catholics

The Rev. John C. Hagee, whose anti-Catholic remarks created a controversy when Senator John McCain received his endorsement for the Republican presidential nomination with fanfare, has issued a letter expressing regret for “any comments that Catholics have found hurtful.”

The letter was issued after weeks of conversations between Mr. Hagee and Roman Catholic Republicans about repairing the damage to Mr. McCain’s campaign and the alliance built over many years between conservative Catholics and evangelicals.

Mr. McCain said Tuesday that he had not been involved in brokering the apology letter from Mr. Hagee, a megachurch pastor in San Antonio who broadcasts to 200 countries, but that he found it "a laudable thing."

Mr. McCain’s pursuit of Mr. Hagee’s endorsement came under renewed scrutiny recently as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, was embroiled in controversy over incendiary remarks by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

Critics have attacked Mr. McCain as failing to distance himself enough from Mr. Hagee. Mr. McCain said two weeks ago that he was “glad to have his endorsement,” but that he condemned remarks that were “anti-anything.”

In his book “Jerusalem Countdown,” Mr. Hagee accused the Vatican of collaborating with Hitler in the Holocaust. In addition, some critics have interpreted Mr. Hagee’s references to “the great whore” prophesied in the Book of Revelation as a slur on the Roman Catholic Church. Mr. Hagee now says that was never his intention.

Mr. Hagee has focused on raising money and building support for Israel among evangelical Protestants, and his letter places his regrets in that context.

“In my zeal to oppose anti-Semitism and bigotry in all its ugly forms,” he wrote, “I have often emphasized the darkest chapters in the history of Catholic and Protestant relations with the Jews.

Photo

The Rev. John C. Hagee, who endorsed Senator John McCain.Credit
Béatrice de Géa for The New York Times

“In the process, I may have contributed to the mistaken impression that the anti-Jewish violence of the Crusades and the Inquisition defines the Catholic Church. It does not.”

Mr. Hagee’s letter, dated May 12, was addressed to William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, who drew attention to Mr. Hagee’s remarks after he endorsed Mr. McCain in February.

Mr. Donohue said of Mr. Hagee’s letter: “Well, miracles do happen. If I wasn’t a believer before, I sure am now.

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“Republican activists have been working with him over the last several weeks, giving him books and articles and getting him up to speed and away from the black legends about the Catholic Church. I have to assume he’s acting sincerely, and now understands” that he has been recycling conspiracy theories.

At a news conference on Tuesday afternoon in North Bend, Wash., outside Seattle, Mr. McCain praised Mr. Hagee’s letter. “The fact that he has made an apology I think is very helpful,” Mr. McCain said. “Whenever someone apologizes for something they did wrong, then I think that that’s a laudable thing.”

Asked if he or his campaign were involved in the apology, Mr. McCain replied, “I certainly wasn’t.”Mr. Hagee and his wife held a meeting on Friday to mend fences with about 12 Catholic political conservatives over lunch at a restaurant in Washington, said several attendees.

Deal W. Hudson, a member of Catholics for McCain and the director of the Web site InsideCatholic.com, said he had helped broker the meeting.

Mr. Hudson said that at the lunch Mr. Hagee explained that in his eschatology of the end times the Catholic Church could not possibly be the “whore” mentioned in Revelation and that he had been misunderstood. Mr. Hudson said the lunch ended on a positive note.

The Democratic National Committee pointed out that Mr. Hagee has never apologized for other remarks offending Muslims and gay men and lesbians.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: McCain Backer Regrets Comments on Catholics. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe